The RDA can't do physics

[Human No More]

Nobody is delibrately, clear-cut evil.

Now you're putting words in my mouth. Crap ones at that, since I think the entire concept is flawed. I said that it reflects EVERY side of humanity - that means good, and it means that equally, perhaps exploitative, greedy and cruel.

Why would they use it? I mean, I'd be really surprised if their electrical losses added up to more than $20m * however much is needed to fix them. ...And the overhead of changing out all the infrastructure. And this is after you apply all the other cost-cutting methods, like turning voltages up and so forth.

There are no details on the electrical grid.

...and built out of an equivalent to cellolose, not steel. What possible evolutionary advantage is there for a tree to grow that excessivly tall?

Competition.

You'd be surprised as to the strength of some cell structures anyway, again, particularly with the much large structural cross-section than anything humans build. Certainly, an Earth species of tree may be unable to, but this isn't Earth. It even grows arches above ground level, which are an excellent load-bearing structure.

A larger cross-section starts working against you when the structure is leaning sideways.

Not when you have enough rigidity.

Also, even if falling over laterally isn't too much of an issue, the structure collapsing under its own weight straight down still is. Hometree is hollow, so there's plenty of space for things to fall into.

So are skyscrapers. Derp.

Your list appears rather biased.

...and?

Yet there's the conversation between Jake and Quartich where IIRC, Quaritch sounds like he's beginning to suspect that Jake is not playing for the RDA anymore. At that point, Quartich should've started investigating and pulled Jake out ASAP. (of course, doing so while giving Jake as little hint as possible of his doing anything wrong.)

This is another of thee times where I suspect you've done nothing more than read the wikipedia page. If you watch it, you can see that Quaritch is wondering, but decides to give him a chance in the hope that it does end up benefiting him, form when he talked to Jake before. If you honestly believe that a character misinterpreting the personality of another makes a film bad, I suggest you stop watching or reading all fiction (and non-fiction).

And my point is that even with perfect numbers in the relavent places, it still won't work, because magnetism is simply not that far-reaching.

Earth's magnetosphere reaches to ~39,000 miles. Clearly, strength falls off, but less than 1km is still extremely strong in relation. Again, even if known superconductors of high or low temperature would not experience the Meissner effect, one with a penetration depth that can be what is needed can and will.

[Moco Loco]

Quote:
Your list appears rather biased.
...and?

[Clarke]

Originally Posted by Human No More

Again, wrong. Things that aren't possible in 2011, yes, but all perfectly plausible, and, if you leave the FTL communication out for the time being, 100% possible in 2011 if the resources were available.

...Project Valkyrie is viable in 2011? And anyway, the "immensly implausible thing" I was referring to was the combination of technology and bad business sense that makes interstellar mining a conceivable proposition, let alone a good plan.

This is why you seem to be a troll to many people. Your thread title is completely wrong, and while the OP was a valid observation in terms of energy requirements, it described things that are completely physically possible, so the title was 100% inaccurate...

But the objective isn't to do it. It's to do it for profit. That is, even with quite ludicrous predictions about how cheap energy is, impossible.

...while you have now moved to complaining about things you wanted to see which would have required an entirely different background for the film, then backtracked repeatedly there, and flipped between saying you like Avatar and making numerous fallacious assumptions and criticising it in a very elitist manner.

If you really think I'm complaining about things because Avatar doesn't do what I want to see as a sci-fi fan, quote me on it. I don't think you can, because I'm not. I'm complaining because working forwards from the premises ("We have this technology, we want unobtanium!") gives a different answer than what actually appears on-screen.

I'd say the majority of parodies are not written by people who like them. they might disguise it as that, but if you actually watch/read them, they turn out to be critical. A tribute is something entirely different.

Galaxy Quest? Airplane!?

That's the issue. You're a Doctor Who fan, I know, but I wouldn't go complaining about it even on here, and certainly not on a fan forum for it, without at the very least having read up on canon from official sources and with arguments reasoned within the universe of the series - which is beside the point in that I do not feel the need to complain about merely because it is not to my taste.

Avatar's canon is only slightly less messy than Who's, and JC doesn't have "wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey" to help. At least, that's the appearance, since so there's so many misconceptions floating around, like "Earth needs Unobtanium," or lack of Na'vi genitilia. (The history of Earth seems to be a can of worms unto itself.) This implies something's gone wrong with the writing somewhere, even if Cameron isn't to blame.

Yet again, you're still not only needing resources for that, but humans to operate and maintain them, and (again), you're going against the entire spirit of human exploration - if it is possible to go there, people WILL.

If they want to go there, they can pay for their umpteen hundred TWh fuel cost. This is being done for profit, so it doesn't matter how powerful human spirit is; the accountants/engineers rule about what actually happens.

On a more practical point, it simply would not be usable enough in many cases, even before the fact that their contract limitations may well include the use of humans to avoid damage.

So the lawyers who drew up the contract are also idiots? I mean, "damage" can be caused by anybody/anything. What's with the prejudice against robots?

Also, just mining random metals isn't enough to produce some kind of ridiculous super robot that can do anything, you need huge amounts of rare earths, electronics, and more detailed manufacturing processes than are available off Earth.

Considering that RepRap is trying to construct a self-replicator, electronics included, now, it's not at all unreasonble that they'd have electronics and other high-precision manufacturing in a portable unit 140 years in the future. This would also explain where Jake got a cheap carbon-fibre wheelchair from.

I was just pointing it out as another long-term effect. Humans can actually survive it quite well, but the increased maintenance requirement on machines over the long term would not be insignificant. Certainly, it isn't one of the largest problems on its own, but adds to the implausibility of your fantasies.

Then bring them back to base to repair them.

Higher voltage batteries are harder to produce, as well as as a general rule larger, bulkier, and more expensive.

Then trade off the voltage for more capacitors.

1. No, they don't cost anything to ship, when projectiles are made locally
2. So batteries now have zero mass?
3. Military
4. That's significantly higher maintenance
5. Experimental weapons 4.4 light years away at a huge cost just to play spess mehren fantasies, or proven, cheap, reliable ones where the vast majority of components do not need to be brought 4.4 light years?

1. Yay, another expensive killed.
2. Zero additional mass, yes. They're part of the weapon.
3. Militiaries aren't the only ones with guns. They're the ones with the most recent guns, yes, but 140 years is a long time.
4. Hmm? Solid-state electronics don't need any maintenance. The only possible problem is the actual laser aperture(s).
5. Can we get rid of the "experimental" label, considering they've been around (at that point) longer than the AK47 has now? Also, they too can be manufactured on site, if you want. You'd possibly need to ship the lasers themselves, but they're incredibly small and light.

Just create a warhead that penetrates the outer structure THEN delivers one. Done. There's no explanation of how, so necessary assumptions can be made.

A warhead? We're talking about man-portable weaponry. You shouldn't be using EMP-weaponry in this context, you should be using high-explosives. And anyway, the materials needed for a Farady cage are so cheap, you might as well [to use a meme] shield ALL the machines, individually.

EMP weaponry is simply not effective on a battlefield, and, personally, I think the entire concept is there because JC wanted a justification for including conventional firearms.

My previous attempt didn't work, so I'll spell this out as clearly as I can.
1. The RDA is not a military
2. They are not a government
3. They do not have access to military weapons (if BAE or Lockheed Martin or whoever decided to start building their own stuff for a private army, I am fairly sure governments would come down VERY hard on them)
4. There are limitations on weapons they can use (since they are supposed to be for DEFENCE), and I'm fairly sure that torture does not come into it.

(You seem indecisive.)
Since the other issues disappear when electronic weapons are passed on to non-military use (as past weapons have been) we're left with contractual limitations. ...??? I mean, an electrolaser is inherntly more versatile than a firearm. It can stun, it can kill, it can make lots of noise and no fire if you need it to. It can torture people, but so can a spoon. Do they ban spoons on Hell's Gate?

This particular part was the following: Bandwidth is not unlimited, so robots can not be used, while humans woukld not explore space with robots if there was any possibility of actually going.

Bandwidth across Pandora is functionally unlimited, because you control the EM spectrum. Robots could be used if they were directed by AI or by humans at Hell's Gate.

Yet they have not said "Nobody is going" (indeed, while performing numerous studies on everything from delivery systems to psychological to physical effects), which is the entire point - indeed, the number speaks volumes about motivation for finding a REASON to send people.

I haven't said that either; Only that if people do want to go to Pandora FOR SCIENCE, they won't be doing it on the RDA's tab. (And personally, I think it's more like the number speaks volumes about our want for science, not especially about sending people. We didn't need a related reason to send people to the Moon, after all.)

I'm going to stop replying to redundant points in the same post, because I don't think you read them anyway.

I do, we just end up discussing the same thing in multiple threads at once.

Energy is available in sufficient quantity that humans can go. Robots adds unnecessary complexity, completely changes the dynamic there, and required a large human presence ANYWAY, and far better-paid ones at that, in addition to a much higher demand for parts that can only be brought from Earth.

Yeah, robots add complexity and save trillions and trillions of watt-hours.

No. That's like saying a world government and nuking iran is a more efficient solution to the problems the world faces today - technically, but nobody is going to do it.

What, problems plural? Because nuking Iran isn't going to help the environment much.

[Clarke]

1. You're acting like unobtainium is the only thing on Pandora.
2. With the only knowledge of its structure, they are looking very secure.
3. With the above knowledge, they can understand how it may be extremely difficult to synthesise if it is ever managed.
4. The infrastructure developed can be reused for other locations if required. ISVs do not magically disappear.
5. Energy is cheap. This is a given, and actually less so than in the vast majority of scifi. You are complaining because it isn't available in 2011, which is ridiculous (as is assuming that the growth rate is non-exponential). You have also previously talked in 2011 numbers, when there is absolutely zero base for how much currency is worth in 2154.

1. Considering it's apparent value, it might as well be. Unless, oooh, Selfridge actually listened to Grace?
2. What, so the RDA have a monopoly on chemistry? How do they know that someone hasn't reverse-engineered it?
3. It was extremely difficult to render photorealistic graphics... Now it costs you basically as much as you want to pour in. That transition took 20 or 30 years, which is the same amount of time involved here.
4. That's only useful if a profit can be made from it.
5. ...Did I mention currency? Ever? I've always talked about it in terms of energy, since you're right, I know nothing about how cheap energy is in 2154.

1. Gambler's fallacy
2. Even the solar system as a whole won't support trillions without dyson spheres or some similar structure. This dnoes not preclude small initial presences elsewhere - indeed, arriving en masse without any base is amazingly stupid, even for one of your ideas - and again, ISVs will not magically disappear, and can be reused, on other routes if necessary.

1. You'll have to explain that one. I don't understand how randomness is involved.
2. Then build them. That's why I suggested O'Neil cylinders earlier; the energy required to get a 50-ton ship to Pandora is gigantic compared to the energy you need to coast around the solar system, even at high-speed. Putting large things in orbit is dirt-cheap compared to shifting even a fraction of the mass to Pandora.

Depends on the risk factor.

I'm struggling to imagine a risk factor that has end-of-the-world impact if humans are spread across both Earth, Mars and the Moon.

Originally Posted by Human No More

Now you're putting words in my mouth. Crap ones at that, since I think the entire concept is flawed. I said that it reflects EVERY side of humanity - that means good, and it means that equally, perhaps exploitative, greedy and cruel.

...And the intelligent...? Sorry. I'd argue quite strongly against that idea, but it's not really relavent.

There are no details on the electrical grid.

Point is, that $20m is going to whack the cost-benefit analysis in the other direction too; nobody would buy it unless they're shifting gigantic amounts of energy for very long timescales.

Competition.

which is why I specified excessivly large. I don't have a screenshot to hand, but I remember Hometree dominating all the other trees around it by a large margin.

You'd be surprised as to the strength of some cell structures anyway, again, particularly with the much large structural cross-section than anything humans build. Certainly, an Earth species of tree may be unable to, but this isn't Earth. It even grows arches above ground level, which are an excellent load-bearing structure.

Not when you have enough rigidity.

So are skyscrapers. Derp.

(So it's made of carbon-fibre? )

Also, you'll notice that skyscrapers are not only intelligently designed, they're built out of materials specifically chosen for the task (possibly even nvented for the task.) No naturally-occuring tree is going to be able to compete with that.

...and the existence of arches seems to imply it isn't naturally occuring, if anything.

...and?

Your (and JC's, IMO) misantrophy is showing.

This is another of thee times where I suspect you've done nothing more than read the wikipedia page. If you watch it, you can see that Quaritch is wondering, but decides to give him a chance in the hope that it does end up benefiting him, form when he talked to Jake before. If you honestly believe that a character misinterpreting the personality of another makes a film bad, I suggest you stop watching or reading all fiction (and non-fiction).

(In the course of finding something else, I did read the Wikipedia page. That scene is not mentioned, IIRC. )

Then I really have to wonder how Quaritch made it to Colonel, with that poor decision making. (Though the film isn't bad per se because of that. However, "idiotic characters in general" could be constructed as a flaw, but let's not go into that.)

Earth's magnetosphere reaches to ~39,000 miles. Clearly, strength falls off, but less than 1km is still extremely strong in relation. Again, even if known superconductors of high or low temperature would not experience the Meissner effect, one with a penetration depth that can be what is needed can and will.

Wait, are you thinking penetration depth is a good or bad thing? Because known superconductors already have penetration depths measured in millimetres, and it goes down from there.

[Human No More]

Originally Posted by Clarke

...Project Valkyrie is viable in 2011?

Only no because the fuel isn't available in quantity. The laws og physics do not change over time to make something possible.impossible. It's very likely that given the universe's size, multiple civilisations are either using one right now, or used to in the past before replacing it.

But the objective isn't to do it. It's to do it for profit. That is, even with quite ludicrous predictions about how cheap energy is, impossible.

Actually, if energy cost is completely unknown (As well as the parameters of unobtainium in specific relevant characteristics), it becomes extremely relevant.

If you really think I'm complaining about things because Avatar doesn't do what I want to see as a sci-fi fan, quote me on it. I don't think you can, because I'm not. I'm complaining because working forwards from the premises ("We have this technology, we want unobtanium!") gives a different answer than what actually appears on-screen.

Every single thing you've ever said about robots and Doctor Who.

Galaxy Quest? Airplane!?

If you think Galaxy Quest is a parody, you are mistaken. Again, see what I said about a majority. That abrams thing relentlessly parodies Star Trek under a guise of being an actual film, all in an attempt to squeeze money from a famous franchise. There is a whole industry of making crappy parodies of any film that does well in an attempt to cash in.

Avatar's canon is only slightly less messy than Who's

Now I KNOW you are trolling. Even I know Dr Who's canon is full of contradictions, as what has been canon has never been established, much like HHGTTG.
The only complete contradictions in Avatar come from two very early non-canon interviews, including the one where JC gets Jake's name wrong and calls Pandora a planet and makes several biological and physics mistakes - but then, that was at the stage where the concept for the Na'vi was this.

and JC doesn't have "wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey" to help. At least, that's the appearance, since so there's so many misconceptions floating around, like "Earth needs Unobtanium," or lack of Na'vi genitilia.

It could have been better explaned, but by claiming it's wrong you ARE trolling. Most people don't know how warp travel, phasers or transporters work in ST, but they are well explained and plausible (transporter energy and memory requirements aside). The fact that the extended scene with tsaheylu was cut showed that it was problematic in the first place, and I know they you would have trolled much harder had it been included in the original.

...the accountants/engineers rule about what actually happens.

...you mean like has happened so far in human spaceflight?
Oh wait.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/kym-assets/e...jpg?1302279173

Politics has ALWAYS been everything. She space shuttle was hugely problematic, and less useful than previous launch systems, particularly since it was intended to be cheaper and was not, but it was a political statement as the USSR was completely incapable of getting anything comparable to even the manned testing stage. That is why humans reached the moon in 1969 in the first place.

So the lawyers who drew up the contract are also idiots? I mean, "damage" can be caused by anybody/anything. What's with the prejudice against robots?

Because the RDA have no choice but to abide by conditions set on them or they are in contravention of dozens of treaties and international law. If they didn't want to, it would have been offered to someone else.
What's wrong with using some kind of ridiculous automated attack robot fantasy where they are supposed to be avoiding causing damage? Really? I know you're trolling here, but even I can't accept you can genuinely pretend not to see that.

Considering that RepRap is trying to construct a self-replicator, electronics included, now, it's not at all unreasonble that they'd have electronics and other high-precision manufacturing in a portable unit 140 years in the future. This would also explain where Jake got a cheap carbon-fibre wheelchair from.

Come back when it can fabricate a modern CPU without the associated multi-billion pound clean room, R&D and equipment. Basic circuits with a hardwired function are infinitely easier.

Then bring them back to base to repair them.

Again: You need humans to do that. Humans come form Earth. Complicated electronics come from earth. An automated program armed with lethal weapons is amazingly stupid.

Then trade off the voltage for more capacitors.

Do you even know what a capacitor does? It takes time to charge, and no current flows until it does. A lower current reduces the speed at which it charges. Sticking more capacitors after a battery can easily increase the discharged energy, as long as you don't mind it being at intervals of a few minutes to hours.

1. Yay, another expensive killed.

Yep, by making conventional ammunition locally rather than shipping over huge quantities of experimental electronics. Thank you for agreeing with my point that your 'lazors lol' fantasy is completely impractical.
I really could not believe you were this stupid if I was not reading it in front of me.

2. Zero additional mass, yes. They're part of the weapon.
3. Militiaries aren't the only ones with guns. They're the ones with the most recent guns, yes, but 140 years is a long time.
4. Hmm? Solid-state electronics don't need any maintenance. The only possible problem is the actual laser aperture(s).
5. Can we get rid of the "experimental" label, considering they've been around (at that point) longer than the AK47 has now? Also, they too can be manufactured on site, if you want. You'd possibly need to ship the lasers themselves, but they're incredibly small and light.

2. Yes, but how much extra 'integrated' mass? A lot - and indeed, it's only zero extra if you're only using a single battery.
3. Yes, and if they started building a private army, they would get closed/raided/sued very quickly.
4. Batteries and the required massive infrastructure. Capacitors. The laser diodes themselves.
5. No. The AK47 works to the point that anyone with a basic machine shop can make one. Lasers don't.

A warhead? We're talking about man-portable weaponry. You shouldn't be using EMP-weaponry in this context, you should be using high-explosives. And anyway, the materials needed for a Farady cage are so cheap, you might as well [to use a meme] shield ALL the machines, individually.

Bad wording then. Any way to penetrate would work, like a rocket-driven penetrator (perhaps augmented with an explosive charge to defeat armour) - but yes, clearly it's not going to be a gun sized weapon, more like an RPG. Anyway, do you even realise just how impractical giving everything a faraday cage is? (Aircraft, for example)

EMP weaponry is simply not effective on a battlefield, and, personally, I think the entire concept is there because JC wanted a justification for including conventional firearms.

No, because your spess mehren lazors DO Exist on Earth. The fact is that they are impractical to use on Pandora, and you are thinking of the reason that projectile weapons are available.

Since the other issues disappear when electronic weapons are passed on to non-military use (as past weapons have been) we're left with contractual limitations. ...??? I mean, an electrolaser is inherntly more versatile than a firearm. It can stun, it can kill, it can make lots of noise and no fire if you need it to. It can torture people, but so can a spoon. Do they ban spoons on Hell's Gate?

Again, there is no NEED for advanced military equipment. It isn't an invasion, idiot.

Bandwidth across Pandora is functionally unlimited

No.

Again, your original point was about control from Earth. The bulldozers ARE remotely controlled by human operators in the tower.

Yeah, robots add complexity and save trillions and trillions of watt-hours.

What about the cost?
What about the increased shipping need?
What about the fact that they are now attacking a sentient civilisation with some kind of ridiculous (and nonexistent) spess mehren robot?

What, problems plural? Because nuking Iran isn't going to help the environment much.

Unless it finally allows united governments
It was an example of your own logic, of course it doesn't work in real terms - that was the point.

[Human No More]

Originally Posted by Clarke

1. Considering it's apparent value, it might as well be. Unless, oooh, Selfridge actually listened to Grace?
2. What, so the RDA have a monopoly on chemistry? How do they know that someone hasn't reverse-engineered it?
3. It was extremely difficult to render photorealistic graphics... Now it costs you basically as much as you want to pour in. That transition took 20 or 30 years, which is the same amount of time involved here.
4. That's only useful if a profit can be made from it.
5. ...Did I mention currency? Ever? I've always talked about it in terms of energy, since you're right, I know nothing about how cheap energy is in 2154.

1. It's all he cares about, that doesn't make it true - the people higher up realise that they can't be seen as destroying.
2. How, when they do not have any?!
3. Comparing graphics design with synthesising an extremely complex chemical structure?
I have no words
4. There's no reason it can't just because you don't want it to be possible.
5. In which case there is no actual problem. It's a lot of energy in present-day terms, but so are present-day terms in historical context, yet not prohibitively expensive.

1. You'll have to explain that one. I don't understand how randomness is involved.
2. Then build them. That's why I suggested O'Neil cylinders earlier; the energy required to get a 50-ton ship to Pandora is gigantic compared to the energy you need to coast around the solar system, even at high-speed. Putting large things in orbit is dirt-cheap compared to shifting even a fraction of the mass to Pandora.

1. You're assuming rates will remain constant about some nonexistent base average.
2. "This does not preclude small initial presences elsewhere - indeed, arriving en masse without any base is amazingly stupid, even for one of your ideas - and again, ISVs will not magically disappear, and can be reused, on other routes if necessary."
Exactly where do you get such a space megastructure into orbit from? Are you going to construct t on Earth where it wouldn't survive? Where are the mass resources required? Constructing a dyson sphere has been theorised to take more useful resources than the solar system contains.

I'm struggling to imagine a risk factor that has end-of-the-world impact if humans are spread across both Earth, Mars and the Moon.[/quote]
Perhaps not, but humans are quite adept at destroying themselves.
Anyway, not only would lunar habitation have to be 100% sealed (and the lunar dust is a HUGE hazard, would get everywhere even with airlocks) and temperature controlled, mars is less hospitable other than having less weak g gravity - although technically capable of being terraformed, such an expenditure would make flights to A. Centauri look like nothing. Again, this is what YOU wanted to see happen in the future rather than a different direction.

which is why I specified excessivly large. I don't have a screenshot to hand, but I remember Hometree dominating all the other trees around it by a large margin.

Exactly.

Also, you'll notice that skyscrapers are not only intelligently designed, they're built out of materials specifically chosen for the task (possibly even nvented for the task.) No naturally-occuring tree is going to be able to compete with that.

...and they can't. The loadbearing ability is not going to be as high, but again, skyscrapers are supported by tiny beams that would never work with a less strong material.

...and the existence of arches seems to imply it isn't naturally occuring, if anything.

Selective breeding/manipulation, perhaps, over uncountable generations as symbiotic populations grew, but not 'artificial' in terms of having been created to grow in a specific manner.

Wait, are you thinking penetration depth is a good or bad thing? Because known superconductors already have penetration depths measured in millimetres, and it goes down from there.[/QUOTE]
Again, the properties can be exactly what is required - metres, even, if necessary.

[Clarke]

Originally Posted by Human No More

Only no because the fuel isn't available in quantity.

Of corse it's possible, in principle, in 2011, but that wasn't what I said. I said it wasn't viable. We have no idea how to build an interstellar spacecraft in any serious detail. We don't know what sort of obstacles you encounter at signifigant fractions of the speed of light.

Actually, if energy cost is completely unknown...

You can be more ludicrous with your predictions of how much energy they have, but... that's still ludicrous.

Every single thing you've ever said about robots and Doctor Who.

I was using Dr. Who as an example of how to write stupid things believably.

If you think Galaxy Quest is a parody, you are mistaken.

"That episode was badly written?" You're really going to have to explain what you mean if you want me to believe that GQ is not a parody.

There is a whole industry of making crappy parodies of any film that does well in an attempt to cash in.

There's a trope for what I'm talking about.

Now I KNOW you are trolling.

What, because you stripped off my qualifier?

Even I know Dr Who's canon is full of contradictions, as what has been canon has never been established, much like HHGTTG.

Yes, and unlike Avatar's sketchiness, (since yes, AFAIK, it doesn't outright contradict itself) it gets away with it, because "wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey." The tone of the work is paramount here, and Avatar is serious enough that we are set up to expect this to be a "real" world.

Most people don't know how warp travel, phasers or transporters work in ST, but they are well explained and plausible

"How do the Heisenburg compensators work?" "Very well, thank you."
You call that an explanation?

The fact that the extended scene with tsaheylu was cut showed that it was problematic in the first place, and I know they you would have trolled much harder had it been included in the original.

How so? The tsaheylu's existence is a questionable thing, but it's use isn't.

...you mean like has happened so far in human spaceflight?
Oh wait.

No, I mean what has happened so far in private business, which space travel didn't count as until very recently.

Because the RDA have no choice but to abide by conditions set on them

I never said who the lawyers were working for.

What's wrong with using some kind of ridiculous automated attack robot fantasy where they are supposed to be avoiding causing damage?

The robots are for mining. They should, as the contract presumably says, only shoot back when shot at, if then.

Come back when it can fabricate a modern CPU without the associated multi-billion pound clean room, R&D and equipment.

The computer controlling a 3D fabrication engine is hardly going to be a "basic circuit."

An automated program armed with lethal weapons is amazingly stupid.

(Only as stupid as you program it to be.)
You need less humans. You need less resources for those less humans. The electronics you need can be delivered by the thousand in the mass budget of a human.

Do you even know what a capacitor does?

Charging speed is almost completely irrelavent. The important components of an electrolaser are total charge stored and discharge speed, since those are what come into play when the weapon is actually fired. I don't care if I have to stick my weapon in the charger overnight if the result lets me fire 100 times inside a minute. (even if that empties the battery.)

Yep, by making conventional ammunition locally rather than shipping over huge quantities of experimental electronics.

"Experimental," 100+ years after its invention?

2. Yes, but how much extra 'integrated' mass? A lot - and indeed, it's only zero extra if you're only using a single battery.
3. Yes, and if they started building a private army, they would get closed/raided/sued very quickly.
4. Batteries and the required massive infrastructure. Capacitors. The laser diodes themselves.
5. No. The AK47 works to the point that anyone with a basic machine shop can make one. Lasers don't.

2. A mere implementation detail. (How should I know? )
3. So... does the RDA have a private army? Because governments have this thing about "monopoly of force."
4. What massive infrastructure do you need for a battery that you don't already have for a bulldozer? An I'm looking for maintenance, not cost. I'd be surprised if capacitors and laser diodes would be damaged at all in the firing process.
5. ...at the moment. Who knows what's going to happen in 140 years of consumer technology?

Anyway, do you even realise just how impractical giving everything a faraday cage is? (Aircraft, for example)

Just isolate everything from electrical contact with the aircraft's body. (And possibly put some wire mesh in the windshield.) Done.

The fact is that they are impractical to use on Pandora, and you are thinking of the reason that projectile weapons are available.

How can they be impractical to use on Pandora? "Ammo" is functionally infinite, there's very little maintenance required, and even a thanator's armour doesn't save it. Magnetic interference is physically hogwash.

Again, there is no NEED for advanced military equipment. It isn't an invasion, idiot.

There's no need for anything more complex than a spoon. You use more advanced devices because they make the job easier.

The bulldozers ARE remotely controlled by human operators in the tower.

But you still have (non-Avatar-driving) humans running around outside. That's inefficient.

Also, I think we have a failure to communicate somewhere, since I've moved on from the original point. Do you want me to summarise my plan as it stands now?

What about the cost?
What about the increased shipping need?
What about the fact that they are now attacking a sentient civilisation with some kind of ridiculous (and nonexistent) spess mehren robot?

1. Comparatively trivial compared to the savings.
2. Ditto. You ship one pack of microchips, everything else is manufactured on base.
3. ...When did I mention attacking anyone? The robots are there to mine primarily.

It was an example of your own logic, of course it doesn't work in real terms.

I don't see how the many conflicting, shifting and ill-defined goals involved in international politics have anything to do with the RDA. They know what they're doing, and they know what the constraints are.

Originally Posted by Human No More

1. It's all he cares about, that doesn't make it true - the people higher up realise that they can't be seen as destroying.
2. How, when they do not have any?!
3. Comparing graphics design with synthesising an extremely complex chemical structure?
I have no words
4. There's no reason it can't just because you don't want it to be possible.
5. In which case there is no actual problem. It's a lot of energy in present-day terms, but so are present-day terms in historical context, yet not prohibitively expensive.

1. The film shows they are there for unobtanium and nothing else.
2. Computer modelling and hypothesizing.
3. Yes. Deal with it. Fundamentally, they're both modelling problems.
4. Economics. See elsewhere.
5. It's a lot of energy in astronomical terms. You don't seem to be getting that bit.

1. You're assuming rates will remain constant about some nonexistent base average.
2. "This does not preclude small initial presences elsewhere - indeed, arriving en masse without any base is amazingly stupid, even for one of your ideas - and again, ISVs will not magically disappear, and can be reused, on other routes if necessary."
Exactly where do you get such a space megastructure into orbit from? Are you going to construct t on Earth where it wouldn't survive? Where are the mass resources required? Constructing a dyson sphere has been theorised to take more useful resources than the solar system contains.

1. Rates increasing doesn't help you fuel an ISV in a reasonable time. You want this to launch within the decade, right?
2. You construct it in orbit from near-Earth objects. And, until you have mind-uploading, a full Dyson sphere is the height of impracticality. Something like a Jupiter brain is far more practical.

although technically capable of being terraformed, such an expenditure would make flights to A. Centauri look like nothing. Again, this is what YOU wanted to see happen in the future rather than a different direction.

If you're patient, you could start terraforming Mars by smashing heavy things into the ice caps. That takes a pittance compared to shifting stuff to A. Centauri.

Exactly.

...hence, there's no reason for it to have evolved like that.

...and they can't. The loadbearing ability is not going to be as high, but again, skyscrapers are supported by tiny beams that would never work with a less strong material.

Yeah, but it's entirely plausible that it's simply impossible to construct the skyscraper without materials of a certain strength. Square-cube law and all.

Selective breeding/manipulation

The lifetime of sentience and self-awareness is about an order of magnitude too small for that. You can't breed trees on Earth. They live too long.

Again, the properties can be exactly what is required - metres, even, if necessary.

I'm confident that there are no properties that make such a thing feasible.

[Human No More]

Originally Posted by Clarke

Of corse it's possible, in principle, in 2011, but that wasn't what I said. I said it wasn't viable. We have no idea how to build an interstellar spacecraft in any serious detail. We don't know what sort of obstacles you encounter at signifigant fractions of the speed of light.

Yes, we do. We've had the knowledge for several decades. We know the hazards (radiation, and particles). We know the theory of a method for propelling it - indeed, if slowly was acceptable, then both ion engines and fission rockets are possible today.

I was using Dr. Who as an example of how to write stupid things believably.

I was using Star Trek as an example of how to write implausible but possible things believably.

"That episode was badly written?" You're really going to have to explain what you mean if you want me to believe that GQ is not a parody.

Personally, I would say a parody is something like all those crap films like 'Epic Movie' and 'Scary Movie' etc. Galaxy Guest points out the differences between scifi and reality, but does not go about it by bashing scifi.

There's a trope for what I'm talking about.

That's not a normal parody. You've shown clear dislike for Avatar all this thread.

Yes, and unlike Avatar's sketchiness, (since yes, AFAIK, it doesn't outright contradict itself) it gets away with it, because "wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey." The tone of the work is paramount here, and Avatar is serious enough that we are set up to expect this to be a "real" world.

YET AGAIN: It does that. It is realistic. It doesn't go 'it does stuff' because that is a stupid point and the mark of inferior writing in the vein of Dr Who or Star Wars. Avatar doesn't try to explain everything in the actual work like Star Trek, which arguably works for it, particularly since it's so limited in time, but it's there for people who are interested. If it wasn't there, you'd be complaining far more.

"How do the Heisenburg compensators work?" "Very well, thank you."
You call that an explanation?

Considering the principle they deal with, an unknown method actually DOES make them work

How so? The tsaheylu's existence is a questionable thing, but it's use isn't.

Problematic in that trolls would jump to conclusions instantly on seeing anything humans couldn't do, which of course turned out to be completely true

No, I mean what has happened so far in private business, which space travel didn't count as until very recently.

If engineers did have the say you seem to believe, spacecraft wouldn't even have windows.

The robots are for mining. They should, as the contract presumably says, only shoot back when shot at, if then.

That was still supposed to be without causing disruption, even if it wasn't followed. Openly using some kind of attack robot for that would not have gone down well on Earth.

The computer controlling a 3D fabrication engine is hardly going to be a "basic circuit."

Compare that to a modern CPU process.

You need less humans. You need less resources for those less humans. The electronics you need can be delivered by the thousand in the mass budget of a human.

...and the humans who have to be there? The support staff for those humans? The security for those humans?
The RDA are TRYING to keep a somewhat positive image here. Sending robots isn't going to do that.

Charging speed is almost completely irrelavent. The important components of an electrolaser are total charge stored and discharge speed, since those are what come into play when the weapon is actually fired. I don't care if I have to stick my weapon in the charger overnight if the result lets me fire 100 times inside a minute. (even if that empties the battery.)

Charging speed is discharge speed: capacitors need to charge. the battery is a completely separate issue here. Are you intentionally trying t misunderstand how a capacitor does.

Your ridiculous spess mehren lazor fantasy would need a LOT of power. That increases the size and complexity of the batteries. Using a smaller one would both reduce capacity, and discharge rate. Lower discharge rate makes the weapon far weaker and/or having a longer interval between shots.

"Experimental," 100+ years after its invention?

...and where it still haven't been used in a real application, then yes.

3. So... does the RDA have a private army? Because governments have this thing about "monopoly of force."
4. What massive infrastructure do you need for a battery that you don't already have for a bulldozer? An I'm looking for maintenance, not cost. I'd be surprised if capacitors and laser diodes would be damaged at all in the firing process.
5. ...at the moment. Who knows what's going to happen in 140 years of consumer technology?

3. Exactly, they don't. For that reason, your fantasy lasers are out of the question.
4. They have a limited life.
5. That's like saying that aircraft have been around for over 100 years so by now, anyone should able to build a 747 (and no, the 'kit car'-type light aircraft you can buy do not count).

Just isolate everything from electrical contact with the aircraft's body. (And possibly put some wire mesh in the windshield.) Done.

See my point about how all you need to do is penetrate that and you have your effective weapon.

How can they be impractical to use on Pandora? "Ammo" is functionally infinite, there's very little maintenance required, and even a thanator's armour doesn't save it. Magnetic interference is physically hogwash.

For lasers maybe, but not for the real extant weapons, which are electromagnet based. Either way, yet again as you seem to be too obtuse to understand this, they can not being advanced military hardware there. (Also, energy is not infinite on Pandora).

There's no need for anything more complex than a spoon. You use more advanced devices because they make the job easier.

No, because that's useless against an 'angtsik.

But you still have (non-Avatar-driving) humans running around outside. That's inefficient.

It's less so to give them all avatars, particularly if, as some people have suggested, not everyone is genetically compatible*.

*non-canon speculation.

2. Ditto. You ship one pack of microchips, everything else is manufactured on base.

Manufactured with what? Things do not suddenly appear there.

3. ...When did I mention attacking anyone? The robots are there to mine primarily.

...because random robots appearing everywhere is so non-hostile, right?

I don't see how the many conflicting, shifting and ill-defined goals involved in international politics have anything to do with the RDA. They know what they're doing, and they know what the constraints are.

Originally Posted by Human No More

It was an example of your own logic, of course it doesn't work in real terms.

This thread

1. The film shows they are there for unobtanium and nothing else.
2. Computer modelling and hypothesizing.
3. Yes. Deal with it. Fundamentally, they're both modelling problems.
4. Economics. See elsewhere.
5. It's a lot of energy in astronomical terms. You don't seem to be getting that bit.

1. Get off wikipedia.
2. Could YOU predict the structure just from knowing it's a room temperature superconductor and without any other information? Thought not
3. Reverse engineering a material's structure from A SINGLE PROPERTY is not the same thing. That's like CSI-style removing a person from a photo and seeing who was standing behind them, or retrieving an image of a person's head from 4 pixels: pure bull****.
4. Again: There is no data on economics. You're using 2011 ones, which is like saying nuclear power is impossible because there wasn't enough refined uranium in the world in 1945.
5. So's Earth's present day power consumption, with only a small percentage of ~7bn people using a majority - now, what about a large majority of ~12bn? Of course there will be pressure to increase capacity apace.

1. Rates increasing doesn't help you fuel an ISV in a reasonable time. You want this to launch within the decade, right?

WTF. How does the rate of power generation increasing not increase available energy for an ISV? That is one of the stupidest things you have said.

If you're patient, you could start terraforming Mars by smashing heavy things into the ice caps. That takes a pittance compared to shifting stuff to A. Centauri.

...Then you have temporarily liquid water which will refreeze (and actually, a lowered temperature from dust disturbance). It's going to take a lot more than that.

...hence, there's no reason for it to have evolved like that.

There is if it's based around symbiosis, as it is. Derp.

Yeah, but it's entirely plausible that it's simply impossible to construct the skyscraper without materials of a certain strength. Square-cube law and all.

Ah, so you're another of these people who don't understand what the sqauyre cube law actually is. That explains a lot.
It's why there are no human-sized (or even cat-sized) insects, because they couldn't exchange gas quickly enough. That's why larger animals have circulatory and respiratory systems, as well as a skeleton. The square cube law does NOT say 'everything must be X size'.

[Human No More]

The lifetime of sentience and self-awareness is about an order of magnitude too small for that. You can't breed trees on Earth. They live too long.

Actually, they can.
The Na'vi are significantly older than humanity, and it wouldn't be on the order known on Earth anyway. for that matter, the degree of connection between life means that a more symbiotic relationship may ALWAYS have existed.

I'm confident that there are no properties that make such a thing feasible.

People were confident steel ships couldn't float.

[Clarke]

Originally Posted by Human No More

We know the theory of a method for propelling it - indeed, if slowly was acceptable, then both ion engines and fission rockets are possible today.

...Apart from the fuel ratios. Ion engines are even worse than antimatter in that regard.

I was using Star Trek as an example of how to write implausible but possible things believably.

If Avatar had done that, as Aliens and Terminator before it, it wouldn't have had nearly so many logic holes.

Personally, I would say a parody is something like all those crap films like 'Epic Movie' and 'Scary Movie' etc.

The Movie Movies are hardly parodies of anything; they don't actually say anything about the thing they're referencing. It's just, "Hey! A reference, lol!" Galaxy Quest plays all the Star Trek tropes relatively straight, and arrives at absurdity and silliness. (And hilarity) That's a parody, because it is commenting on Star Trek's irrationality.

That's not a normal parody. You've shown clear dislike for Avatar all this thread.

...Of course I have? It's a thread for discussing a flaw in Avatar, after all.

It doesn't go 'it does stuff' because that is a stupid point and the mark of inferior writing in the vein of Dr Who or Star Wars.

In the case of Dr. Who, it is arguably far more in-character for the Doctor to say wibbly-wobbly than give a proper explanation. It is completely believable that whatever-it-is operates on nothing resembling human physics, and so not explaining is good writing.

Avatar doesn't try to explain everything in the actual work like Star Trek, which arguably works for it, particularly since it's so limited in time, but it's there for people who are interested. If it wasn't there, you'd be complaining far more.

Star Trek doesn't try to explain everything either. (i.e. Technical Manuals) And if it wasn't there, I'd be complaining less; it's imposisble to argue about logic that isn't there.

Considering the principle they deal with, an unknown method actually DOES make them work

No, sorry, if you're going to provide an explanation and say it's credible, it's got to actually exist.

Problematic in that trolls would jump to conclusions instantly on seeing anything humans couldn't do

From a theorectical standpoint, tsaheylu actually renders genitals redundant.

If engineers did have the say you seem to believe, spacecraft wouldn't even have windows.

Hmm? Windows would just be dangerous in a interstellar spacecraft. There'd be nothing except a static starfield to see.

Openly using some kind of attack robot for that would not have gone down well on Earth.

"It's either that, or spend 100x times more resources, and we all know how important energy conservation is..."
Besides, they're not (designed to be) attack robots. Think Big Dog, not Terminator.

Compare that to a modern CPU process.

...Process? What does that have to do with physical objects?

...and the humans who have to be there? The support staff for those humans? The security for those humans?

Few in number, zilch, and robotic, respectively.

The RDA are TRYING to keep a somewhat positive image here. Sending robots isn't going to do that.

And sending mercernaries does?

Your ridiculous spess mehren lazor fantasy would need a LOT of power.

AFAIK, an electrolaser actually requires comparatively little power. It requires potentially a lot of energy, but little power. Besides, 140 years of supercapactors.

...and where it still haven't been used in a real application, then yes.

Hasn't it? I mean, apparently, people used EMP weapons in ordinary combat. That implies electromagnet-powered weapons were mainstream at some point.

3. Exactly, they don't. For that reason, your fantasy lasers are out of the question.

So they get their weapons from... where?

4. They have a limited life.

Measured in, IIRC, hundreds of thousands of charge/discharge cycles. (Though I admit I have no idea about laser diodes. It's probably similarly high.)

5. That's like saying that aircraft have been around for over 100 years so by now, anyone should able to build a 747

To correct your logic, since the Wright Flyer's been around 100 years or so... I'd be really surprised if a skiled mechanic couldn't build one, given the design.

See my point about how all you need to do is penetrate that and you have your effective weapon.

...At which point you have significantly damaged the aircraft already and an explosive weapon would be more effective at disabling it.

For lasers maybe, but not for the real extant weapons, which are electromagnet based.

...Even gauss-gun weapons shouldn't be affected signifigantly. (And energy effectively is infinite; you'd fuse seawater.)

No, because that's useless against an 'angtsik.

What, the spoon, or a electrolaser? Because the latter would be fairly effective, since it would cause instant death at high power.

It's less so to give them all avatars, particularly if, as some people have suggested, not everyone is genetically compatible*.

No, I mean, that if you keep the Avatar program, then obviously you will have Avatars running around away from the main base, since it's their job. However, no other humans should leave the base except in exceptional circumstances/emergencies.

Manufactured with what? Things do not suddenly appear there.

The manfacturing facilities the RDA bring along in the original plan.

...because random robots appearing everywhere is so non-hostile, right?

Will the Na'vi discriminate between robots and aliens when it comes to hostility?

1. Get off wikipedia.

That was actually from memory of the film. Your counterexample, please?

2. Could YOU predict the structure just from knowing it's a room temperature superconductor and without any other information? Thought not

Give me a theory of quantum gravity and a supercomputer and I'll give it a good try. Besides, we also know things like density, and presumably element composition. (Otherwise we wouldn't be able to tell it was a new thing.)

3. Reverse engineering a material's structure from A SINGLE PROPERTY is not the same thing.

Well, it sort of is. They both involve modelling certain situations and finding a solution. The unobtanium thing just has less information to work from, and we're limited by not understanding how superconductivity actually works. They presumably aren't.

4. Again: There is no data on economics. You're using 2011 ones, which is like saying nuclear power is impossible because there wasn't enough refined uranium in the world in 1945.

...Am I? I thought I was using 2011 data artificially inflated up to 11.

5. So's Earth's present day power consumption, with only a small percentage of ~7bn people using a majority - now, what about a large majority of ~12bn? Of course there will be pressure to increase capacity apace.

I assumed earlier that every one of 20bn using about 8x the present-day average per person, and that still adds up short.

Also, the background materials specifically mention that this power is being gneerated by nuclear fushion reactors. Fusion is impractical as a method to fuel an ISV. The power generated would be an order of magnitude out.

WTF. How does the rate of power generation increasing not increase available energy for an ISV?

Sorry, there was a lack of space: it doesn't matter because it doesn't increase that fast. You might get a difference as high as 1TW, if you're lucky. The energy required is measured in billions of TJ.

...Then you have temporarily liquid water which will refreeze (and actually, a lowered temperature from dust disturbance).

It (hopefully) won't refreeze, because water vapour is a greenhouse gas. That's why we're dropping stuff from orbit rather than just nuking it.

There is if it's based around symbiosis, as it is. Derp.

There is no advantage for hometree to extend so far above the canopy, with or without symbiotes.

The square cube law does NOT say 'everything must be X size'.

What it does say is that for all materials, there is a height, dependent on the material, where a column cannot support itself. It is completely impossible to build a house larger than (whatever) out of wood, for instance, because wood is not strong enough to support the weight.

Originally Posted by Human No More

The Na'vi are significantly older than humanity, and it wouldn't be on the order known on Earth anyway. for that matter, the degree of connection between life means that a more symbiotic relationship may ALWAYS have existed.

Are they doing a Bene Gesserit thing, or something? Because that's the only way to maintain something like a breeding plan over 4 or more generations, otherwise the Chinese Whispers effect kicks in.

And interconnectedivity in between organisms isn't a magic bullet. At least, I don't think it is, since Pandora is not composed of smart dust.

People were confident steel ships couldn't float.

That's easy enough to disprove; do the force calculations. It's significantly harder to show that a mountain can be supported in a reasonable magnetic field.
Incidentally, if you want me to calculate exactly what magnetic field you'd need, I'd need to know the size of Pandora. Is there any info given about that?

[Human No More]

Originally Posted by Clarke

...Apart from the fuel ratios. Ion engines are even worse than antimatter in that regard.

Yet possible (and, hence the 'slowly').

If Avatar had done that, as Aliens and Terminator before it, it wouldn't have had nearly so many logic holes.

There are no logic holes.
Everything is consistent - it does not necessarily work in terms of what exists on Earth today, but this is 146 years in the future.
If you want to see something with humans invading everything with uberweapons, you're on the wrong work here, go read the 40k books or play Mass Effect instead.

...Of course I have? It's a thread for discussing a flaw in Avatar, after all.

Yes, a thread you made on an Avatar forum, about how much you hate Avatar.
The OP was about the amount of fuel required, which is not physically imspossible by any means, yet you still decided to call it 'RDA can't do physics', which is pure crap and not consistent with your OP, and you have endlessly complained about it being 'inconsistent' when the consistency is extremely high - consistency and both possibility and plausibility are entirely different things. Star Wars is total crap as far as the science goes, but it's consistent about that. Star Trek is bad but not as bad, and still consistent on the core points.

In the case of Dr. Who, it is arguably far more in-character for the Doctor to say wibbly-wobbly than give a proper explanation. It is completely believable that whatever-it-is operates on nothing resembling human physics, and so not explaining is good writing.

It's bad writing, simply because non-Earth physics ARE explainable. People have done it. Certainly, it's probably a very good thing not to do so in the actual work itself past points that would ruin enjoyment if missing, but having it there is for people who are interested enough.

No, sorry, if you're going to provide an explanation and say it's credible, it's got to actually exist.

That is, by existing, they both do and do not provide a mechanism for it to work, until that mechanism is verified.

[quote]From a theorectical standpoint, tsaheylu actually renders genitals redundant. [/qiote]
Actually, it doesn't. Tsaheylu is a neural connection: There is no exchange of genetic material or anything else. Stop getting all your information about Avatar from Wikipedia and Newgrounds.

Hmm? Windows would just be dangerous in a interstellar spacecraft. There'd be nothing except a static starfield to see.-

Massive structural weakness.

"It's either that, or spend 100x times more resources, and we all know how important energy conservation is..."
Besides, they're not (designed to be) attack robots. Think Big Dog, not Terminator.

...because that would have gone down so well with the Na'vi, right?

...Process? What does that have to do with physical objects?

MANUFACTURING PROCESS. Yes, that is a called a process, stop being pedantic and dodging the question because you can't actually answer it.

Few in number, zilch, and robotic, respectively.

Actually, no, no and no.
I guess you probably believe humans are special and can work ridiculous amounts thanks to your hating Avatar because humans aren't omnicidal villains who wipe everyone else out here, but they can't. If people are going to be living there, they need buildings. They need food. they need communications, and equipment, everything needs maintenance. There needs to be security. People don't spontaneously know what's to be done, there needs to be some kind of localised authority who has authority to make decisions for higher up as they are not reachable.

And sending mercernaries does?

They're humanoid. They may be stupid, but they follow orders (the corruption higher up was a separate issue which would have, if anything, been worse without humans below). They aren't going to shoot at anything that moves. They're there to stop an angtsik demolishing hell's gate, not to destroy everything in sight. You seem to have some extreme overconfidence about the abilities of a robot.

AFAIK, an electrolaser actually requires comparatively little power. It requires potentially a lot of energy, but little power. Besides, 140 years of supercapactors.

Brilliant, when they're not even extant yet. Anyway, energy weapons don't even exist in widely used forms ON EARTH (I would guess maybe something like Firefly at the most, where they exist, but are extremely expensive, unreliable, and nobody bothers with them).
Also, it only uses very little power if you're operating it in a completely ionised environment.

Hasn't it? I mean, apparently, people used EMP weapons in ordinary combat. That implies electromagnet-powered weapons were mainstream at some point.

Until that post, you WERE talking about lasers. Stop changing argument when it suits you to counter the same one of mine. you're not attacking me form two positions here, you're making yourself look incapable of tracking the thread of this conversation.

So they get their weapons from... where?

Present day analogy: where do Blackwater get theirs? Remember, Blackwater may be effective at murdering civilians, but they don't have F-22s or AEGIS missile ships to do it, which is the equivalent of what you believe the marines in Avatar should have.
They are using standard, off the shelf consumer stuff, as available in 2154, supplemented by late 20th century helicopters (did you know that 1940s-1950s fighters can just be bought today, it's just that nobody could procure actual weapons for them). Indeed,they may well have been specifically licenses to use what they need for personal security on Pandora (and not launching an invasion) as part of their contract.

Measured in, IIRC, hundreds of thousands of charge/discharge cycles. (Though I admit I have no idea about laser diodes. It's probably similarly high.)

To correct your logic, since the Wright Flyer's been around 100 years or so... I'd be really surprised if a skiled mechanic couldn't build one, given the design.

Yes, but it's a crap aeroplane, and that's the point. Any skilled mechanic these days could make one with access to the plans, hence the point that they could not make a 747 - a modern one with all the refinements which outperforms older ones in virtually every measurable manner, almost all at once.
The simple fact that a weapon has been around for n years does not mean that the very pinnacle of its development is going to be available to everyone with a shed, even if they could very well potentially make a duplicate of the earliest prototypes.

...At which point you have significantly damaged the aircraft already and an explosive weapon would be more effective at disabling it.

Not in an area of effect that can take out an entire group.

...Even gauss-gun weapons shouldn't be affected signifigantly. (And energy effectively is infinite; you'd fuse seawater.)

"Energy effectively is infinite"? I thought you were complaining about the amount of energy required in the first place. You're arguing yourself into a corner here.

What, the spoon, or a electrolaser? Because the latter would be fairly effective, since it would cause instant death at high power.

Yet a spoon is useless as a weapon in that case, so it's a completely **** analogy.
Some kind of nonexistent experimental laser may work against an angtsik IF it existed (which it likely doesn't in a usable form), while tried and tested weapons that are easily available, and are far less of advanced military hardware, are ALSO available.

No, I mean, that if you keep the Avatar program, then obviously you will have Avatars running around away from the main base, since it's their job. However, no other humans should leave the base except in exceptional circumstances/emergencies.

...and they do that as far as is actually possible. Again, I suggest you close Wikipedia and actually watch Avatar.

The manfacturing facilities the RDA bring along in the original plan.

they can not do that if there is nobody there.

Will the Na'vi discriminate between robots and aliens when it comes to hostility?

Humans are far more likely to be able to actually have proper dialogue with them.

That was actually from memory of the film. Your counterexample, please?

It's all Selfridge is there for. That doesn't mean his sentiment is shared.

Give me a theory of quantum gravity and a supercomputer and I'll give it a good try.

Tell NASA, CERN or any large research university you have a guaranteed way of finding one and I'm sure they'll lend you time on one
Oh wait, that's because you can't just by knowing that one might exist.

Besides, we also know things like density, and presumably element composition. (Otherwise we wouldn't be able to tell it was a new thing.)

Only if someone goes there, which completely defeats the point of making it without going there.

[Human No More]

Well, it sort of is. They both involve modelling certain situations and finding a solution. The unobtanium thing just has less information to work from, and we're limited by not understanding how superconductivity actually works. They presumably aren't.

...and there lies the problem.
'Ideal' materials have been speculated on for centuries. We know exactly what properties they would have (including density), and even model scenarios based on them, so why don't they exist?

I assumed earlier that every one of 20bn using about 8x the present-day average per person, and that still adds up short.

I assume you completely neglected to take non-personal energy use into account then
Oh, hoped I wouldn't have noticed that, right?

Also, the background materials specifically mention that this power is being gneerated by nuclear fushion reactors. Fusion is impractical as a method to fuel an ISV. The power generated would be an order of magnitude out.

Depends on your process. As you said earlier in the quoted post, "Energy effectively is infinite".

It (hopefully) won't refreeze, because water vapour is a greenhouse gas. That's why we're dropping stuff from orbit rather than just nuking it.

It also increases albedo, and Mars is a LOT colder than Earth to begin with; there needs to be a great enough amount of heat to return, not to mention preventing it from refreezing and simply coating the surface with albedo-increasing ice crystals.
Comets also have HUGE amounts of energy, and directing one accurately would be easily as significant as reaching another star system.
Oh, and also... there are no known resources on Mars, other than dust and water. Short of spreading population out, there's no good reason to.

There is no advantage for hometree to extend so far above the canopy, with or without symbiotes.

Again, there is when clans live inside them. Indeed, evolution may well be directed by a basic understanding of this on the network level.
You used to claim it was physically impossible, but I see how that position has been abandoned.

What it does say is that for all materials, there is a height, dependent on the material, where a column cannot support itself. It is completely impossible to build a house larger than (whatever) out of wood, for instance, because wood is not strong enough to support the weight.[/quote]
...and you know more than has ever been released about the composition of their structure?
No, you're just bull****ting again.
Think of it like your precious doctor who: It exists. Technically, it's possible. There's no explanation how it specifically works, but because there is none, the properties can be assumed to be within stable parameters.

That's easy enough to disprove; do the force calculations. It's significantly harder to show that a mountain can be supported in a reasonable magnetic field.
Incidentally, if you want me to calculate exactly what magnetic field you'd need, I'd need to know the size of Pandora. Is there any info given about that?

Actually, it isn't. If it was based on a simple dipole magnet, then yes, it would be. If you are going to so religiously believe that it won't support the mountain, then surely the uses in maglev systems on Earth wouldn't either.
Also, beside the point, Pandora's magnetic field varies a LOT locally. The mountains are not found everywhere.


You come onto an Avatar forum and start waxing lyrical about how much you hate Avatar. You complain about how there weren't things you wanted to see, and decide that something that is not possible with what is currently on Earth is 'inconsistent' despite it working EXACTLY THE SAME WAY throughout the entire film. You then go on about how great Dr Who is because it does the same thing and to a far greater extent. You first say 'there isn't enough energy' when complaining about getting there, then later "Energy effectively is infinite" when defending your fantasy about lasers.
You are quite possibly the least logically consistent person I have ever met. You continually move the goalposts, and forget which point I was even replying to.

[Clarke]

There appears to have been a massive communication failure somewhere, so after responding generally to your post, I'm going to lay out my actual argument about what the RDA are doing wrong. ...And writing this post took to long, so I'll do it tommorow.

Originally Posted by Human No More

Yet possible (and, hence the 'slowly').

No, and I have the maths to prove it.

it does not necessarily work in terms of what exists on Earth today, but this is 146 years in the future.

See later. Also, you do a lot of modern-day comparisons yourself later on.

Yes, a thread you made on an Avatar forum, about how much you hate Avatar.

"It does things wrong" != hating it. It's a very nice film indeed, but it could be better.

The OP was about the amount of fuel required, which is not physically imspossible by any means, yet you still decided to call it 'RDA can't do physics'...

Doing it for profit is the bit that RDA can't do, as I'll explain later.

It's bad writing, simply because non-Earth physics ARE explainable.

Of course non-Earth physics are explainable, but in the case of Dr Who, an explanation would defeat the point, and change the tone of the work. The "science" of Who is a case of Remember, it's a show, I should really just relax, to quote MST3K.

Actually, it doesn't. Tsaheylu is a neural connection.

"From a theorectical standpoint..."

...because that would have gone down so well with the Na'vi, right?

Historically, completely unrecognisable things tended to generate fear.

MANUFACTURING PROCESS.

Calm down, I did not understand you meant the manufacturing process. And the answer is 140 years of Moore's Law.

I guess you probably believe humans are special and can work ridiculous amounts thanks to your hating Avatar...

To use an appropriate meme, automate ALL the things! And have one of the few humans be the authority! You don't ship someone there specifically to lead, that'd be a tremoundous waste! ...And before you ask about how you automate stuff before Hell's Gate is constructed, you do it from the Venture Star.

They may be stupid, but they follow orders (the corruption higher up was a separate issue which would have, if anything, been worse without humans below).

Robots do everything you've just listed faster, more accurately, and more controllably than humans. This is simply because they've been built to that specific purpose. They do not have any of the failing of humans, either, such as impulses, emotions, or ability to panic.

Anyway, energy weapons don't even exist in widely used forms ON EARTH

That'd be pretty surprising, since we've nearly developed them in 2011. See a couple of paragraphs down about this.

Also, it only uses very little power if you're operating it in a completely ionised environment.

Which is what the "laser" bit is for. Also, let's keep the physics terms straight: the energy required is relatively constant and possibly quite large, but the power is small because you only have to maintain the ion corridor for a millisecond to get the current through it.

Until that post, you WERE talking about lasers.

Electromagnetism-based weapons, then. They're the same for the relavent property of being affected by EMPs.

Indeed,they may well have been specifically licenses to use what they need for personal security on Pandora (and not launching an invasion) as part of their contract.

I'm lost now. Are electromagnetic weapons just developed then, have been developed for some time, or were never in mainstream use? (In which case, what were EMP weapons for?)

Yes, but it's a crap aeroplane, and that's the point.

No, the point is that we have 100 years of manufacturing technology over the Wright Brothers.

The simple fact that a weapon has been around for n years does not mean that the very pinnacle of its development is going to be available...

The fact that a given design has been around many decades most likely means that people with astronomical energy budgets could build it.

Not in an area of effect that can take out an entire group.

I fail to understand what you are talking about. Either, the EMP goes off inside the aircraft, which ideally destroys everything in it, and nothing else, or it goes off outside, and does not affect the aircraft. Faraday cages work both ways.

"Energy effectively is infinite"?

...in the context of operations on Pandora.

while tried and tested weapons that are easily available, and are far less of advanced military hardware, are ALSO available.

...And less effective, I am led to believe. Apparently, an angtsik is bulletproof against small-calibre kinetic weapons. Energy weapons have no such problem.

...and they do that as far as is actually possible. Again, I suggest you close Wikipedia and actually watch Avatar.

What are the mechs for, then?

Humans are far more likely to be able to actually have proper dialogue with them.

Why not skip humans and go with Avatars? That's what they're for, after all.

It's all Selfridge is there for. That doesn't mean his sentiment is shared.

We don't see any of Selfridge's bosses apart from Quaritch in the film.

Tell NASA, CERN or any large research university you have a guaranteed way of finding one

(Of course they will, I have a theory of quantum gravity. )
In this context I know one exists, I want to find out what it is.

Only if someone goes there, which completely defeats the point of making it without going there.

A probe's data will do for that, though. I'm assuming we have data from the probe, otherwise we wouldn't know about unobtanium.

Originally Posted by Human No More

'Ideal' materials have been speculated on for centuries.

What do you mean by "ideal" materials? Because there's the classic Unobtanium, which is a material of a non-existent tensile strength, resistance, density, whatever, but we can't say anything else about that, other than it has the property we need, because it can't exist. Obviously, this plan involves calculating the properties of substances that can exist, probably by working upwards from atomic arrangements.

I assume you completely neglected to take non-personal energy use into account then

The statistic is "energy consumption per capita," thank you.

Depends on your process. As you said earlier in the quoted post, "Energy effectively is infinite".

You'll have to elaborate. Fusion is a well-understood process, and it doesn't produce nearly enough energy.

It also increases albedo, and Mars is a LOT colder than Earth to begin with

We also just dumped a huge amount of heat into the soil, what with the fairly large explosion the impact produced. Anyway, this is an engineering problem the RDA can face when they decide this is a good idea. AFAIK, we don't have the time or knowledge to go into it here.

Comets also have HUGE amounts of energy, and directing one accurately would be easily as significant as reaching another star system.

Which is why you don't try and turn it towards Mars, War of the Worlds style. You just shift it in the gravity well so that it ends up on a collision course with Mars, which takes far, far less energy.

You used to claim it was physically impossible, but I see how that position has been abandoned.

It may still be physically impossible, but neither of us have the engineering ability to know that, so I'm giving the benefit of the doubt.

...and you know more than has ever been released about the composition of their structure?

This applies to all materials and to all structures. (Except when you get into mega-engineering, but you're not about to tell me that Hometree is made of carbon nanotubes. )

Think of it like your precious doctor who: It exists. Technically, it's possible.

IMO, you've missed the point if you think Who's "science" reflects reality in any way, shape or form. The e.g. TARDIS cannot exist in this universe, and only the weakest of facades is made to suggest it could.

Actually, it isn't. If it was based on a simple dipole magnet, then yes, it would be. If you are going to so religiously believe that it won't support the mountain, then surely the uses in maglev systems on Earth wouldn't either.

What is it going to be based on, if not the Meisner effect as generated by Pandora's magnetic field?
(Also, you'd be a wonderful mathematician. What's six orders of magnitude between friends? )

Also, beside the point, Pandora's magnetic field varies a LOT locally.

...This should also be impossible. The core should be pretty isotropic in all directions.

You complain about how there weren't things you wanted to see, and decide that something that is not possible with what is currently on Earth is 'inconsistent' despite it working EXACTLY THE SAME WAY throughout the entire film

.
We could discuss only the film, rather than the expanded canon, but I don't think that's what you mean.

You then go on about how great Dr Who is because it does the same thing and to a far greater extent.

...in a different context and tone. Moffat and Cameron are trying to convey different things, and so the audience has different expectations.

[Advent]

This thread's definitely gotten interesting.

[Clarke]

Right, to the calculations! (again! )

Working from the OP, the fuel required for the Venture Star will be 49 times as large as the payload being delivered. Since the fuel is antimatter, this is equivalent to 4.4×10^18 J per kilo of payload.

To give an idea of how massive this quantity is, assume the Venture Star weighs 5000kg. Also assume that the RDA have the resources to fuel it in the time it actually takes to fly, which is slightly under 6 years. We can thus calculate how much power the RDA have access to (4.4e18J/kg * 5000kg) / 6 years = 116.3 TW. (i.e. 116,300,000 megawatts.) This will obviously increase significantly if the loop idea was implemented.

Acording to this page, the world energy consumption in 2003 was 20,261TWh, and so the power of that year was 20261e12/1 year = 2.313 TW. The ratio between these is 50.3. IOW, the RDA require the power of 50 modern Earths to fuel an ISV. I presume that JC does not mean to imply that the RDA rule (a large chunk of) the world of 2154?

Now, I'm disinclined to believe that the RDA actually have access to this, because the expanded canon tells us that Earth's current major power source is fusion reactions. These are nowhere near powerful enough to provide the requsite power, as I'll now demonstrate. ATM, there are 441 fission reactors in the world, providing 379GW of power. This gives a rough ratio of 859 MW per reactor. Fusion as a process is roughly 5 times as efficient (per mass of reactant) as nuclear fission is. Let's give the future the benefit of the doubt and say each reactor is 10 times as efficient as fission ones, so each produces 859*10 MW = 8590MW each. So, a simple division tells us that the RDA requires 116,000,000/8590 = 13,505 reactors. (Ignoring the fact that modern reactors take thousands of staff as well...)

I hope you can understand why I don't like this idea. Although a Dyson solar collector would stop it being such an impracticality, this isn't mentioned in the background material AFAIK, and so, IMO, assuming it's there is handwaving. (which is, apparently, unrealistic. )

Now, since getting a payload to Pandora is so incredibly expensive, the RDA want to make every kilogram count. Considering how many people disembarked the ship with Jake, they appear to be doin' it rong.

My plan is as follows: bring as few people as possible, with as many automative facilities as possible. (Remember, every single person you bring costs about the same energy as all of Earth produced in 2001.) Construct Hell's Gate either automatically or by remote control from the Venture Star. (If necessary, bring the two satelites needed to establish total radio cover over the moon along with the Venture Star, but I assume the RDA do this anyway.) From there, construct most of your equipement on-site, including the majority of the defense network and mining machinery. You obviously need some mining robots to begin with, but these should also be kept as light as possible. If the microchips controlling the robots cannot be manufactured to any degree, then load a large amount of them onto the Venture Star. (i.e. 5000 or so) This will be far economical than the RDA's plan, as electronic components are orders of magnitude ligher than a human, once all the heavy parts are removed. (i.e. conventional harddisks. Solidstate or spintronics all the way.) Low-performance electronics are acceptable if that's what can be manfactured. The Avatar program is essentially a sunk cost; whether it goes ahead depends on how valuable the RDA consider PR to be, and it produces no profit.

The defense should be done with energy weapons, most likely electrolasers and masers. This is because the primary running cost of any weapon is the ammunition, which in the case of energy weapons is nearly free, and requires no specialised machinary or specific resources. Additionally, some types of energy weapon are capable of bypassing the natural armour of Pandora's fauna. Physical armour has no bearing on the effectiveness of a maser, and only very little impact on the effectiveness of an electrolaser.

The energy you need to power all of this is provided by fusing water, which can presumably be found in abundance. (There is mention of the Eastern Sea.) The materials are provided by mining, as well as recycling everything you can get your hands on. Solar panelling on the Venture Star may also be used to begin with, but fusion will be more reliable and efficient. Since Hell's Gate will be smaller than even an Earth town, power becomes functionally unlimited, so long as instaneous energy output is not too high. This will be more than enough to support the humans living there.

Oh, just as a closing note, look at my numbers in the first paragraph or so carefully. I worked on the basis of the ISV weighing 5 tons. The actual Project Valkyrie specification that the Venture Star is based on gives a mass of roughly 100 tons. The numbers above are a gross underestimation and yet IMO, they are still impossibly large.